Knowledge for Freedom Programs invite underserved high school students to college to study enduring works of literature and philosophy that raise deep questions about leading lives of purpose and civic responsibility.

You’re putting yourself at the table surrounded by these thinkers and you are actually a thinker yourself. Not only because you’re reading them, but you're critiquing them, you’re interpreting what they’re saying, and putting yourself in the argument.

Be passionate and honest with this opportunity, take the time to learn from these great professors, and know they care as much about your education as you do. Be willing to expand yourself, this program is here to help you become a better citizen.

I've learned that despite my shyness and reticence, I want to be heard. I have so much to say and so many questions to pose. I had the privilege to see this side of me in the seminar.

The discussions that we have in the classrooms stick. They are carried with us everywhere we go as they change our insight and perspective of the world around us.

As project director, this program combines so many of the things that matter to me: demonstrating the absolute necessity of the humanities as a training ground for citizenship, leveraging the intellectual resources of the university to make a positive difference in underserved areas, and engaging students in changes in their own communities.

Many of our students come in thinking of their thoughtfulness mainly as a social liability. Our program teaches them to be proud of their reflective nature, and to take the risk of sharing their thoughts in conversation and in writing.